The present invention relates to a method for limiting a utilizing terminal of contents, and a storage device and a system for this method.
As a recent infrastructure is spread, a user can easily utilize digital content of music, a screen image, etc. On the other hand, the digitized content can be comparatively easily altered and copied, and no quality is deteriorated. Therefore, this creates a situation in which an unfair copy is frequently made and copyright is infringed. Various DRM (Digital Rights Management) techniques are proposed to solve such problems.
As an example of the DRM techniques, there are a technique for setting play count of content, a technique for limiting the number of copies, a technique for limiting terminal device which can play the content, etc.
JP-A-2001-351323 (patent literature 1) discloses a method in which the terminal able to utilize the content is limited to only a terminal recording the content. The copyright of the content is protected by adding a limit to circulation of the contents like this. In the setting of “the terminal device which is allowed to play the content is limited” able to play the content by only the device that records the content, a device proper key is applied to an encryption key of the content. In the setting of “there is no restriction of terminal device to play the content,” an encryption key of the content is generated using a device ID. The device ID of the terminal device and mode information of the restriction of the terminal device to play the content are stored to a medium recording the contents. In the case of the content of “the terminal device which is allowed to play the content is limited,” the content can be decrypted only in the terminal device registering the device proper key. In contrast to this, in the case of “there is no restriction of terminal device to play the content,” the device ID is acquired and the content can be decrypted and played with any terminal.
JP-A-2004-264894 (patent literature 2) discloses a method for limiting a terminal able to play content by registering information of a device for allowing regeneration to contents utilization condition information.
Device attributes of the terminal device, e.g., a manufacturer's name, a model number of the terminal device, a function, etc. are stored to each terminal device. On the other hand, device attribute information of the terminal device which is allowed to play the content is registered to the contents utilization condition. When playing the content, it is collated whether the information of the device attributes registered within the terminal device is included in the attribute information of a device registered within the contents utilization condition by a utilization condition interpreting module within the terminal device or not. It is then judged whether the terminal device is allowed to play the content or not.